I don't know if there are any studies on this but the perception amongst EV users that I'm aware of is that NACS is a very reliable system (low rate of charging stall breakdowns) compared to CCS chargers that seem to break down quite frequently. However, it is unclear if this is due to the technology difference between CCS and NACS or if it's just due to the poor implementation of CCS charger infrastructure.
1. Whenever I’ve been on road trips, Tesla chargers outnumber CCS chargers by at-least 5:1 and are in much more convenient locations
2. Tesla is much better about repairing their chargers. You’ll still find busted ones but because there are so many, it’s easy to go to the next stall. With CCS, there’s often not a next stall at all nearby.
If you watch YouTube review channels in Canada like The Straight Pipes, the number one issue they have with CCS EVs is that they can never find working charging stations.
I think it’s incentives. If Tesla chargers break and stay broken, then Tesla owners get mad. (And Tesla chargers seem to break or malfunction with some regularity — they’re not indestructible. But they get fixed, and there are always more than one or two chargers at a site.)
The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations.
> The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations.
They do care but technology is unforgiving. Tesla is many iterations into improving their station reliability, they are vertically integrated and their station are very simple. The production volume is far, far higher leading to improve quality.
The competitors like EA, in their effort to scale simply have 3-4 different providers put into the same box. Different hardware, different software and so on. And then also a NextGen version from all these providers.
Their stations are much more complex, with screens and so on. So the failure rate is far higher and repair is much more difficult.
I think you are underestimate the challenge of how difficult it is to role out such an infrastructure and maintain it specially when you are just a service provider, not an actual engineering company. Tesla just made it look easy and everybody expect that any other company could do the same, but they can't.
Like you said, the law of numbers.. if a Tesla stall is out theres usually 7 others to choose from. Any other network may have one or no alternatives (they're all broken sometimes).
Right, and Tesla is speedy to fix broken ones usually. And an occasional bad charger isn’t a huge deal (I talked to an electrician who was servicing one of them). Gas stations regularly have non-working pumps, and I suspect those are more expensive to fix.
The Tesla approach is really another level for charging compared to everyone else. And even the mobile chargers & Level 2 destination chargers are better.
